Friday, August 29, 2008

Thursday, August 28, 2008

I case you have wondered why I'm not posting much this week, I am moving into a new house. It's been rough, but I'm posting updates on the process at Miss Cellania, with one long and rather grim story at YesButNoButYes. There are also some pictures to lighten the mood, and some links about moving. I hope by next week, regular links and stuff will reappear here. There are videos of the day scheduled for the next few days automatically, so keep checking back!

Anything that can go wrong, will. Not quite, because I can think of a million worse things, but I'm not going to mention them because I don't want to jinx myself. But several things have gone wrong with our move to a new house. Most of them today.

1. I contacted the cable company last Thursday. I thought I had everything straight. The girl read my order back to me and said she would call me as soon as she got a service call scheduled. She didn't call back. Friday morning, a cable installer comes to my OLD home, ready to install new cable. Wrong. And I had told them that I wouldn't have access to the new house til Friday night anyway. So he left and said they would call me as soon as the order was straightened out. No they didn't. Monday morning, I call the cable company. They apologized for not calling me, blaming it on the other woman I talked to. They look up my account, and say that yes, a service call is scheduled Tuesday between 8 and 5, and I will have to be there. It's a good thing I called to check, because otherwise, I'd never know. So I get to wait all day tomorrow at the new house to see IF they will show up.

2. The refrigerator in the new house is really nice, but doesn't work. A friend who sells appliances came out and diagnosed it as a dead compressor, so he doesn't want it. So now I have to pay the city to haul off my old refrigerator AND pay this guy to transport the refrigerator from the old house. Unless I just buy a new one.

3. There is no hot water. The appliance guy tried to turn on the heater, but it wouldn't work. Turns out that the main gas is off. I went to the gas company Thursday to transfer my account, but they never bothered to turn it on. I'll call them tomorrow while I wait for the cable guy.

4. So many of my massive antiques will not fit in the new house. Several of the rooms have their corners cut to accommodate closets and bathrooms, which were not standard when the house was built 103 years ago.

5. I'm being nickel and dimed to death. I had to buy a vacuum cleaner. I haven't had one in twenty years, so I didn't know they were THAT expensive! Plus fees to change over three utilities, and the phone company will probably charge me for leaving my land line forever. I had to buy a smaller trash bin, new toilet brushes, different casters made for carpet, light bulbs, etc etc etc. I don't even want to think about paying for insurance, property tax, and utilities for two houses for who knows how long.

6. I couldn't move anything in the truck today because it's raining. Tomorrow, more rain. We've been desperate for rain for weeks, but this is not the best time for me personally.

OK, I got that off my chest. Now maybe I can take a nice hot shower and.... sleep on the floor in my old house. My bed is at the new house, but there's no refrigerator, hot water, or internet access. Tomorrow will be better.

The Goblin Shark has mostly pink skin and jaws that can protrude out of its skull like the creature in the movie Alien. In this video, the shark is trying to defend himself from a scuba diver. (via Ectoplasmosis)

When you get real busy, or you get really old, time speeds up and you can't believe another week, or year, or decade has gone by. It was three years ago today that I published the first post at Miss Cellania (which was actually here). It seems like just yesterday, but the days are a blur when you're raising kids.

For my first Blogiversary in 2006, I published a collection of silly generated images of myself. I still do that when the opportunity arises, but not often enough for another collection. For my second Blogiversary, I made a timeline of blog milestones, with links. Since I have that, I'll just give a few links on what's gone on in the third year.

This year, I tried to do some 100% original content posts, starting with the Playhouse post in November. Then I posted about my vacation in Memphis in a two-part post at mental_floss, and also my projects Hillbilly Recycling and Salsa Time! I'll do more of that if I do anything even remotely interesting.

In May, I decided to change this site's format. It was somewhat gradual, since I had some stuff ready to go, but the response was immediate and phenomenal! My traffic has tripled, since other sites find it easier to link to one item at a time. If you are looking for a particular topic, you can still find the old topic-style entries listed by post title here, or by subject here. That last index link is not quite complete, but I'm working on it. Those will go in my sidebar as soon as life settles down a bit (so it might never happen)!

In June, The Neatorama Show debuted. There were only three episodes (here are episodes two and three), because I couldn't figure out what should go in a show that we couldn't just post to the site directly. Keep it simple, ya know. I'm not in a position to get on-the-spot reports because I have no cameraman and I live far away from anything interesting to record.

I am now in the process of making an interactive timeline about Miss Cellania (the blog) at Timetoast. It wouldn't be interesting to anyone besides myself, but it's a great application you can use to make any kind of timeline you like.

Posting may be a little thin next week, as I am moving into my new house. This blogging job isn't as easy as you may think, but it's still fun! Many, many thanks to everyone who visits, corresponds, links, and contributes to Miss Cellania! I couldn't do it without you!

Small town Americans love their harvest festivals. My town just finished one, so I’ve satisfied my jones for Polish sausage and funnel cake for another year. Here are eight more you may want to check out in the weeks ahead.

For the first time, a woman has won the Illinois State Fair hog-calling contest. Study her technique, and you may be a winning hog caller someday.

The winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad opening lines was announced a few days ago, but word is slow to get out because "many newspapers have allowed themselves to be distracted by a large athletic contest being staged somewhere in Asia."

So THIS is what the kids were doing that made so much noise in the living room last night! I guess they got into the Olympic spirit. I didn't find out until I downloaded the pictures from the camera this morning.

"Relativity" is an art project by Drzach & Suchy in which pictures are created using raised tabs. The art is revealed by the shadows of the tabs, and the picture changes depending on the direction of the light. This particular piece is called "Marilyn".

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Watts Towers were built by one man, without help and without proper construction tools or blueprints. Continue reading for the story of how Simon Rodia single-handedly built the 17-structure project that still stands today in Los Angeles. He spent 34 years building his masterpiece, and then walked away from it.

Is there a law somewhere that says we all have to face the same direction in an elevator? Apparently so, since we all obey that law.

The Olympics Sap-O-Meter scores the syrupy sweetness of NBC's coverage by measuring the use of words like inspirational, sacrifice, adversity, and overcome. It's almost like a drinking game, if you bring your own drinks.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The Pleistocene Era began 1.8 million years ago and ended roughly 10,000 years ago. During that period were several Ice Ages. Many giant sized animals and birds that seem familiar to us (because they resemble modern animals) roamed the earth. They became extinct, possibly due to environmental conditions or disease.

If plagiarism doesn't catch up with you in college, it certainly will on the internet. Even if it takes years.

DNA tests on the mummy of King Tut and two fetuses found in his tomb may indicate whether he fathered them. If ancient Pharoahs weren't always marrying their sisters, we could chart the genealogies of the Egyptian mummies.

Drug-resistant Superbugs are confounding medical and public health experts. What doesn't kill them only makes them stronger.

Before the era of mass entertainment, we watched kittens playing to amuse ourselves. Then came the cinema, radio, TV, and the internet. Now we use the internet to watch kittens play -and they are still entertaining! (via Arbroath)

Friday, August 08, 2008

The film tells the story of a psychiatrist, Dr. Cross, (Vincent Price), who is treating a young woman, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw), who is in a coma-state, brought on when she heard loud arguing, went to her window and saw a man strike his wife with a candlestick and kill her. It also stars Lynn Bari as Dr. Cross's nurse/lover, Elaine Jordan.

As Stewart comes out of her shock, she recognizes Dr. Cross as the killer. He then takes her to his sanitarium and at Elaine's urging, gives Janet an overdose of insulin under the pretence of insulin shock therapy. He can't bring himself to murder her in cold blood, though, and asks Elaine to get the medicine to save her. Elaine refuses, they argue, and he strangles her. Dr. Cross saves Janet's life, but now faces two murder charges.

How the rich think. In 2006 at least 32 of the UK's 54 billionaires paid no income tax at all. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever. But that doesn't seem to bother Britain's wealthiest earners.

How to Tell Time Without a Clock. The sun, moon, and stars will do just fine but clouds can ruin your efforts.

The St. Petersburg Times has a heartbreaking account of a feral child found living in an urban apartment under horrific conditions. Danielle was almost seven years old, yet she had never been to school, didn’t speak, and did not react to human contact.

Worth a Bookmark: Hard to Find 800 Numbers. A site that makes it more difficult for companies to hide from their customers.

A daily pill to prevent HIV infection? If it works, it will be a lot more expensive than condoms.

A tour of the world's largest illegal arms market, in Pakistan via Afghanistan. They live in caves and they've been making guns for hundreds of years.

In August, it’s hard to find time to sit down and research some fascinating subject for you because I’m knee deep in tomatoes. Everyday I head to the garden with a five-gallon bucket and fill it up. Sometimes twice a day. I also grow peppers, so that means it’s salsa time! Cue the music!

It’s called a standup mover, a compact motorized transporter, and a partner robot. And that’s just in the first couple of paragraphs of the press release. It’s also been called a vertical mechanized scooter. What it is, is something like a Segway. Toyota has developed the Winglet through its Sony Robotics subsidiary.

Monday, August 04, 2008

One of my favorite authors has died. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 and served as witness to the entire span of Soviet rule in Russia. He was imprisoned for anti-Soviet propaganda, followed by exile in Siberia. His experiences were the basis for his novels, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, The First Circle, and others. His magnum opus was a the 3-volume tome The Gulag Archipelago. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 and was deported from the Soviet Union in 1974. He returned to Russia in 1994.

The International Herald Tribune takes a look at Solzhenitsyn's life and legacy.

Solzhenitsyn had been an obscure, middle-aged, unpublished high school science teacher in a provincial Russian town when he burst onto the literary stage in 1962 with "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." The book, a mold-breaking novel about a prison camp inmate, was a sensation. Suddenly he was being compared to giants of Russian literature like Tolstoy, Dostoyevski and Chekov.

Over the next five decades, Solzhenitsyn's fame spread throughout the world as he drew upon his experiences of totalitarian duress to write evocative novels like "The First Circle" and "The Cancer Ward" and historical works like "The Gulag Archipelago."

"Gulag" was a monumental account of the Soviet labor camp system, a chain of prisons that by Solzhenitsyn's calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land.

Reading Solzhenitsyn was one of the few things that could keep me inside the dorm during college. He sparked my interest in Russian history as well as global politics and the philosophy of evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was 89.

The movie was aired by NBC at the height of Kiss's popularity in the United States. While it was one of the highest-rated TV movies of the year, its poor acting and semi-comedic script causes it to be regarded poorly even by most Kiss fans. Despite this, it has attained cult film status.

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